Singapore Trip 4 : Video post from Af

Time flies so fast ! 

It has been a month since I went to Singapore for the event at Suntec City with Public Garden. I'm still finding reasons to travel again but it isn't wise to travel during end of the year, the weather is bad, school holidays, people finishing up their leaves balance, plus commitment to renovating my now-destroyed-kitchen make me only focus on one future trip alone - in next February T^T

Here is a video Af compiled from the event. He took a while to animate my logo and his logo when the video starts and ends. Kudos for the magical tiny animation ! I loved it :D

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Public Garden Consumer Trade Show 2016 from Farikarim on Vimeo.

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Work Related : Remaining 2016 with events & activities

Reasoning always pushes me into sudden splurging on things; because when I have money - I want to travel, and when I can't travel I want to buy things - just because. Hm. But then, I'm trying to fill my schedule with events and activities that I can do, in hope of making my inner-self understand that sometimes I need to be the adult and be reasonable. Oh well.

This November I'll be joining an event :

• 26th event - JUNKed Makers Market at Prototype Gallery, Wisma Central, Jln Ampang. Near KLCC, in front of now demolished : the Red Bungalow. It's the place where people in the city go to print stuffs. It was the place I went for random lunch when I worked part time between Matic KL and Menara Atlan, or the place we sometimes send things to be urgently printed *even though they were all expensive, my God. Not quite sure the crowd, but rental is super affordable to sell my little stickers for the day.

Here a map :

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• 27th event : Etsy Made Local at Battery Acid Club,  Petaling Jaya. It is a 2-days event, but my booth is scheduled for that Sunday (13/11) : more calming day. I've been wanting to join the Etsy Malaysia group - so I'll have more exposure, more chances to go to places because sometimes it is way easier to plan in a group than going to big events alone. But I'm too introverted to believe that I may need other people in my life. But trying matters. I hope I won't be the thorn among the roses and feel out of place.  

Here's the map :

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I'll be fighting with a lot of little demons to open a booth and be among the society, just so I can share stuffs that I made with people whom might probably like it . Hope I can see you guys soon? Or you can always opt for more indirect and expensive way : which is via my Etsy, of course :)

• Also Putrajaya Night Marathon : where I will be trying my first 21km running + walking + zombie-like-dragging-my-feet.

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While in this December I'll be joining this :

• School Holiday : Doodle day class at UPM *still not confirmed*

• 28th event : Rantai Art Festival 2016 at IM4U Sentral, Puchong. Two of my previous events with Rantai were a total failure *I didn't even write a post about it because it was so bad*, I think I'm giving this one another shot to see whether they can reborn again or not. Compared to all other events that I'm joining in this 2 months, Rantai is the most expensive. Way expensive, I don't see how the event will help independent market with high rental if there's no crowd at all. But then again, we'll see :)

Here's the map :

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Tutorial : Simple Digital Illustration

I'm going to share some of my techniques in digital illustration based on my own noob experience. 

There are several types of illustration that I do :

1. Digital illustration using hand-drawn stroke - on Photoshop
2. Digital illustration using vector - on Illustrator
3. Digital Illustration or Painting - on Photoshop

My favorite style is by using Photoshop because it will be more flexible to draw on my Wacom tablet almost naturally. The bad side for this technique : It will be a solid illustration, any changes mean you need to wipe it clean and draw it back. The size for the illustration will also be fixed, so you can't really enlarge it from the original size you started. 

Compared to vector : the illustration will be super flexible, you can edit all the points or enlarge it as big as you want but, the styling will be a bit too clean for my liking.

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To start, you need to know what you want to draw ie : the rough idea. A sketch on paper is good *you can scan it or snap a picture of it and open it on Photoshop, a rough moodboard from images taken from the net is also good - in this case, you can make a layout of what you want to draw and put all the items on the artboard and experiment with the size and location. 

The size :

For any digital illustration that will only be used online : blog, ig, fb, etc - 

Artboard : 1000 x 1000 pixel
Resolution : 150
Colour mode : RGB 

For any printing artwork : poster, brochures, etc -

Artboard : Based on the printing size, it is advisable to use the size of your printing size as a reference. So you will make sure that the size of your illustration will be big enough to be printed later.
Resolution : 300 *the highest
Colour mode : CMYK *test print is your friend. iMac's screen usually show brighter and more colourful screen but your printed items might not.

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I can't find my pencilled-sketch for this illustration. But yes, I did doodled this on a paper and snap a photo of it using my phone. Then I open a new psd file and paste it on one of the layer. I drew on the upper layer afterwards. 

Here are the items on the illustration, on different layers because I like to rearrange it over and over again until I got something that I like :

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Here is an illustration all arranged and ready to be coloured :

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And here is the coloured version :

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See? Illustrations that aren't vectorized always looked a bit personalized. It's my personal favorite style, I really like clean hand-drawn digital illustration like comic. 

Most of my formal works use vectorized illustration because they are easier to amend - *clients are hard to please :F but most of my informal fun projects are in digital hand-drawn illustration. Down below is an example of the vectorized illustration from the same theme above *in lazy version, nothing that makes it look like my work, kan? : 

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So it depends on you, you can always try few other methods and see which style you like the most. As a visual designer, it is surely useful to know several different methods because you need to illustrate based on your client's need. Designers need to know how to manipulate visual items. 

But for an illustrator, you need to have your own 'touch' that make your digital illustration came from you only. It's a live-long journey, the more you practice and experiment, the more style you'll come across and you will find something that you like the best that represents you.

Work Related : Some Tips for New Illustrators

As a local illustrator, I hate to accept that most local clients/publishers are putting such a low-fees/budget/price on illustration works. And because I wanted to help the industry, I usually agree on the pricing even though I know that I'm also jeopardizing the small illustrator's industry as well. I wish they know that I actually put much higher service fees to other international clients - as my time and effort worth. And the reason I agree to work with the local industry is just because I wanted to help and be a part of the growing industry itself. 

But sometimes it is just not worth my time and effort.

Sometimes I am just so frustrated T^T

Here are some notes for budding illustrators :

Don't let them give the price of your work - it will demotivate you.

• Ask them their budget on each illustration or spend the time for the illustration with the same amount of budget they have stated before agreeing to the project.
• Or, give your service charge in advance : per illustration/per project/per day/per hour so they will know upfront.
• Please don't let them give the price for your work, you are no longer a student waiting for the teacher to grade you. You are adding values to their project, appreciate your time and effort. You decide your price or they decide their budget.

Before agreeing to a project - make everything clear.

• What they want? Which style - vector? hand-drawn? 
• Rough price for each illustration - simple items, complicated item, full poster, icon
• Make sure both sides agree on it
• Send them an invoice 
• Start working

Set timeline - try to follow the timeline 

• If you need more time, tell them
• If you can't submit in time, tell them
• If you can't no longer listen to their never-ending amendments, tell them
• If you think you are not up for it, tell them
• This is a field that need your most contribution and creative ideas, if you are not fully up for it - I can't imagine how your artwork will turn up. So don't be afraid to reject a project, or a client.

Your client is not always right - even how professional you are trying to be.

• I know they are paying you, but if your instinct is saying that they are evil - don't work with them. Ha.
• People who are paying you to work with you is not your boss. Imagine them as a working partner. You want to feel full-filled and proud after you finish a project, because those works are your babies - and you are passing your babies to your clients and they will grow up together. So your clients are not your bosses - make sure you work with the right people.
• I met super-manipulative evil clients before. So I'm picky nowadays.

Know the price, know your price.

• Basic way if you don't know how to name your service price. Your basic monthly salary, divide by your working days, you'll get your daily salary. So there you'll get the basic salary for your 8-hour working time - don't let it go lower than that.
• Research, experiment on several projects with various clients, you'll get the rough idea on how the local pricing goes here. 
• It really not worth it - trust me, I'm doing this just for passion and charity - to help the industry and to learn. Don't be an illustrator working for local clients - work your way up, and soon you'll work with clients worth your time and effort. 
• My cheapest fees I got was RM 12 per illustration, my highest fees I got for a full illustration was RM 12,000. So, yes, work yourself up and choose your clients.

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Note : Most local clients will have a REALLY low budget, don't expect an easy life out of it. They will negotiate to get a lower and lower price than you should get paid. And you will feel devalued and under-appreciated. If they are really on a tight budget, you can suggest them to download images from Freepik or subsribe to Shutterstock, by doing that they can't demotivated your burning passion and waste your time.

Or if it is not for money, just do it for your passion and you know that it will make you feel fulfilled afterwards. You know they are using you anyway, make sure you'll have a fun time while doing the project and you will feel proud and want to post it in your Behance and Dribbble later - if not then it is actually not worth your time :D

Work Related : Old Navy Poster

Have you seen it ?

I subscribed to Adobe CC for a year, so I got to use Adobe Portfolio. Tried it and kinda like the whole clean curated look of my online portfolio. All images are not auto-compressed like in Behance *even though they are in the same engine - images posted in my portfolios are images uploaded in my Behance, but they are all clean and crisp :F Compared to images I posted in Blogger, Pinterest, Dribbble and Behance - at least these uploaded images aren't auto-compressed by the engine. I'm super grateful. So you can see all my shared works there, none tiny-bit-blurry caused by auto-compression. *you have no idea how this issue disturbed me for a long while back :F

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Note : All works now belong to Old Navy.

My last client before I started working full-time again was Old Navy. The Old Navy. I worked on this project for 2 months, since right after Eid until August 2016. 

This was considered as my first 'big' international client eveeeeer and I was super excited and nervous and everything in between. I took so much time to finish up the project even though I was working as a freelancer for full-time. I want to indirectly thank my art director for the project, Mr Jonathan for helping me and being super patient with the whole slowpoke process T^T

I even took 2-3 weeks for for the research, moodboard and first rough sketches. I don't know how other illustrators work, but I know I did take a long time than the intended timeframe they gave me. But I loved it, I love the whole process T^T It was like I finally been paid for my time and effort to make something that I really-really like in my own style and colours T^T 

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Here are some of other cities' poster made by other illustrators from all over the world. The Malaysia poster was done by Big Mouth - I'm his super faaaaaan, I contacted him to ask for the formal forms that I need to filled in :D 

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My poster was definitely wayyy different than all other posters because I chose to do in hard-line stroke for all the vectors when almost all other illustrators didn't use any strokes at all. But I took the chance. Mine looked different, but definitely my strokes - for anyone who've come to recognize it lah, I looked at it and it looked like my work. And I'm proud of it *at least while I'm writing this, I feel proud of it, who know 2 years from now I want to delete the work because it looked super ugly by that time kan.

Here are my first draft sketches :

My strongest feeling is the 4th sketch, and thank God he agreed with me too. So I came out with the version 2 of the 4th sketch. The detailing, the planning on what to draw, the size of the paper that need to resemble the poster size - so using a squared paper in my Muji planner was very-very useful. I came out with this :

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To digitize it took few more weeks, and to finalize it took more and more weeks :F I had some problems with the colour mixture and the text wording of "Indonesia" and "Old Navy". They gave me a branding guide, so I had to follow their colour guide.  See how many revised files I have in my hard-drive :D 

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We finally decided on huge blocky word for "Indonesia" and main colour : red to represent their national colour. The wording was customized a bit to make it looked like it came from the same person. Ditto the word "Old Navy" in a bubble surrounded by one of their national flower :

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So that's the story of my first 2016 international client :D 

You can view the finalized version HERE. 

Rejected version :

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Note : Best kaaaaan. Do you want to be an illustrator now? :D

Work Related : Japanese Foods & Drinks Sticker Packs

Here are some of my stickers from my previous trip to Tokiyo that I printed out for my Public Garden, Singapore event a few weeks ago. I've been keeping these for almost a year now :F I used these stickers in my personal travelogue for the trip. Sooo nice that I can draw and make my own stickers for my own syok-sendiri travel journal kan :D

These are my favorite items while we were in Tokiyo - like our first day early morning breakfast when we first learned how to use the vending machine at the airport (I remember the blue morning, cold breezy rain and both of us sitting at the deck waiting for morning light) , or our random juices like Coconut water that doesn't taste like coconut at all - more like a sweetened water that we bought at our first park when we were lost in the city while searching for the nearest Daiso we saw in the map, or our daily breakfast drinks throughout the trip, or lots and lots of Onigiris. 

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All ready and packed for next events in November (I signed up for Junk-ed Makers' Market and Etsy Made Local). Also selling these sticker packs  in my Etsy.

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Books : Scandal, Boring Fictions and More Books

I think I took around 3 weeks with iFlix to finish up all 4 seasons of 'Scandal' by Shonda Rhimes. 

I never thought I would enjoy politic/mystery/thriller series these days :F Look how grown-up I am now, I no longer have any patient to watch superpower/fantasy/sci-fiction series or even movies. I've been living in my own world for almost 30 years, now I'm just starting to catch up on the world's issue :F Just because I feel intrigued to know.

I did try to watch Once and The Magician over the weekend, both attempts failed. I sat there watching the series, did somethings else at the same time, and forgetting that I was watching the series. When did I became too hard to be impressed by fictions?

Note : Also watched Miss Peregrine's & the Peculiar Children last weekend with my family when we were celebrating Ma's birthday and I didn't like it :F I'm so sad.

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I listened to Nicholas Sparks' audio book - The Wedding last week, it took 3 working days. The book is a sequel to the famous 'The Notebook" - featuring non-other-than Ryan Gosling as Noah and Rachel McAdams as Allie, that once brought me to tears. But the sequel was boring :F It was about an old couple that was about to celebrate their 30 years of marriage, they were Noah & Allie's daughter. They were having relationship difficulties, lost it's 'sparks' after so many years of being together. Compared to all the drama and emotional rollercoaster that Jodi Picoult can write in her books, Nicholas Sparks lost all his 'sparks' to me a long time ago :F
I no longer feel his writing worth my time. This too, saddens me.

Also another 2 additions in my weekly audio books are Roald Dahl's books : "Danny, the champion of the world" and "Charlie & the Chocolate Factory" - all in one working day, because the stories weren't that long. I loooove Roald's books, currently listening to "Matilda" - with the story-telling version from Kate Winslet. I personally suggest all parents to read-along Roald Dahl's books with your children. I'm reading the ones that I never read before and re-reading the old ones.

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While on physical books, I managed to finish reading "The Life of a Stupid Man" by Ryunosuke Akutagawa. Personally loved the first short story he wrote in the beginning of the book. I didn't know him as a writer, I just bought the Penguin book that costed RM 6 and the book was small and light enough to always be in my bag for emergency reading time.

Read this and I found out that he killed himself at 35, before publishing the book with 51 tiny stories, some were as short as in one-paragraph and a bit confusing. He was having a depression :( Here are some of his quotes :

He wanted to live life so intensely that he could die at any moment without regrets.

Do I still love this woman? he asked himself. He was in the habit of observing himself so closely that the answer came as a surprise to him: I do.

Currently reading "Chronicle of a Death Foretold" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez & still on "The Graveyard Boy" by Neil Gaiman because I left it in the car.
Note : I'm catching up to finish my 29 books-goal for this year :F

Run : The Fitness Story in a Year, July - Oct 2016

The first half of 2016 can be read here.
This is the second half of the fitness story for this year :

July :

• Total run : 5.5 km
• Goal update : 194/250km
• Super lazy + busy month.

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August :

• Total run : 50 km
• Goal update : 200/250km
• We trained for the up-hill track because our 10km trail run in Bromo was getting near. We went to Bukit Jalil park, Bukit Komanwel Park, and Putrajaya for our training during the weekend. Sometimes we went to the gym when we can't go out running. 

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September :

• Current total run : 37.5 km, 
• Total walk : 3 km
• Goal update : 250/250km - completed !

• New running goal : 365km by 31st December 2016
• Bromo Marathon 2016 - Af and I entered the Bromo 10km Run, read here for the full story.
• I just bought a new running shoe from Power : Play On at Bata after I got back from Indonesia. The old one has been over-worn, it's time for a new running shoes. I've been using Power since I first started running in 2013. The second shoe lasted almost around 600km of running + jogging, for the past 2-3 years without any injuries. Even though it was cheaper than most famous running shoes, for me, these shoes are the best running shoes that I've used. Personally I feel that what matters is a workable shoes for my running sessions. For less than RM 70, I can run for 2 more years. I believe that anyone can run, using how much they afford to spend, be it Power shoes, be it second-hand running shoes from pasar malam, be it hand-down shoes from your siblings. Those famous brands they printed outside of the shoes doesn't represent anything in your runs, so don't ever feel bad or ashamed of what's there on your body because none of the materialistic items represent who you are. Remember, that the early marathoners in those old days never wear any running shoes or fancy equipments. So you can just use what's enough for you :) 

• Since I can no longer use my iPhone for running tracking because my iPhone is getting older and not-so battery efficient. I bought a pedometer to track my running distance and Casio watch to track the time. I'm pretty sure I won't be buying any smartwatch anytime soon in my life, except if one day they will make a kiddy-size watch for my super-small wrist. So I opted for a small size digital watch like the ones I wore in high-school. 
• Bought the pedometer before I went to Indonesia, it worked like magic, stopped when it needed to, activated again when I continue running/walking. Pedometer is an old-technology, so anyone can get it, it's quite cheap. It tracks the distance, the steps, and the calories burned. I've always wanted to buy it since I first started running. Only less then RM 20. We are now best-friends :  

• I also signed up for my first half-marathon this November - seeing that I run 10km by myself in most of my weekly training, I think I can try to upgrade my running length. Training starts already, I have 2 months to go. I have to train for more than 10km runs from now on. Managed to ask my brother to join the event as well, for moral support. I might need it. 

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October :

• Current total run : 55 km, 
• Total walk : 10.5 km 
• Goal update : 317 / 365 km
• I already started my training - a bit late, because I was having vertigo and rested for a week. I'm trying to go running at least 3 times per week. But then, I went running only 9 times this month, mostly on weekends because I'm too lazy to go after work on normal week day :D

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November :

• Putrajaya Night Marathon - I signed up for my first 21 km - half marathon

Singapore Trip 3 : Things I Bought from the Trip 02

This time I managed to wake up before 4.30am. I went to our small kitchen to make hot Neslo that smells so nice in the morning and ate a banana. It started to rain. Early morning, hot drink and rain, a great combination to start a day.

I'm continuing to list things that I bought in the previous Singapore trip - because all items deserve the mention :)

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NoemoArt/Pooi Ning Chia postcard :

Her booth was located right behind my booth, so I went to look around many times. She is an illustrator from Johor. One postcard that caught my eyes was a printed illustration of her hand-drawn Pekan Nanas (1950-1960s) map. She mentioned that it wasfrom an old map of her hometown - I'm guessing in Johor. I really love hand-drawn maps so I finally bought one from all the coins I collected during the first day of the event. The postcard costed $2. 

I also asked her to sign the card and took her cute little namecard as well. She packed it in a nice transparent matte envelope. Loooove.

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Evangelione's postcard :

When I walked past Evangelione's booth before the event started on the first day, there were rows of her cute little hand-sewn dolls lined up. The next time I walked past by again several hours later, all her dolls were sold out :o This happens several times already as I met her in other previous events.

So there's nothing else for me to buy except for $1 printed postcards. I bought one as a support, 3 small ladies in teapots. It is so adorable I love it. I asked her to sign it in the back of the postcard :

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MiniFanFan namecards :

I met her ! She stopped by at my booth and told me that she recognized me T^T I was at the verge of crying + sweating nervously. She told me that she already joined the event several times and chatted with me for a few more minutes, but I can't quite remember what she asked or said because I was too nervous.

I didn't managed to buy anything at her booth because I didn't have the budget :F But because I already bought her postcard from her previous event, I guess that's okay then. I took 2 of her namecards though, because it was so nice to see and collect.

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Other links :

EEChing's Handmade (Malaysian Crafter) | Chris Chew Yi Wei (Singaporean Illustrator)

Heimlo (Indonesian Designer) | Dodolulu (Hong Kong Illustrator)

Mossery (Malaysian Planner) | Paper Therapy (Indonesian Crafter)

Muffinsaurs (Illustrator) | HappyDoory (Malaysian Illustrator)

Tiny Supplier (Singaporean Crafter) | When I Was Four (Singaporean Illustrator) 

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I saw/met a lot of illustrator/designer/doodler/crafters in this event. Quite an impressive crowd. The event was not solely focused on design + arts, but more to various of things that we can do ourselves : independent clothing lines, pottery/ceramic makers, personal coffee maker, hand-sewn items, jewellery makers and so much more. 

If you want to go to the event, please do. It's quite an eye-opening experience for me to see how many people from Asia came down here to open a booth together :)

Singapore Trip 2 : Things I Bought from the Trip 01

I woke up at 6.15 am, much later than I planned the previous night. I was having vertigo for the pass 5 days so I decided to meet a doctor last night just to get some advise on the matter because I was planning to start my running training soon. It's almost around 1 month before my 21km run. But the doctor advised me to just stay at home and rest for a few more days before I start my training. Just to avoid any accident :o

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Anyway, I wanted to post some items that I bought from Public Garden's event at Singapore that I joined last 2 weekends. This sticker set were made by Naela Ali, an Indonesian illustrator that I've been stalking from her IG. She uses water colour as her main medium - and I like her soft subtle way of colouring things. The ones that I never wanted to try because it isn't really my style, but still things that are awfully nice to see and collect! :D I personally like the japanese foods sets from her illustration. Not quite liking the style of her other illustrations like cats and people and random shots, so I just purchased this set only. 

This sticker pack costed $10 - converted into RM is around RM 30.
That means this is the most expensive item I bought in Singapore during my trip :D

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I tried several times to repost these images, but blogger seems to auto-compress all images and I can't get sharp images. So I'm a bit annoyed. I managed to post it into my pinterest and copy the image's link to repost half of the images. While another half are still a bit blurry :

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She hand-cut these stickers, but unlike my OCD-ed cut with exact spacing between all items and their borders, these are more messy. Some I can't even ignore - like the ChocoBaby box and Milk Bottle with a cat cartoon on it? *see image below. Af might roll his eyes over my OCD-ness, but well you have no idea how people like us feel about this yo :D

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Anyway, these sticker pack is my favorite so far :

Note : I did bought this pack from his boyfriend *I assumed it was his boyfriend, because she was entertaining other customers when I went to her booth on the last day. Didn't found any courage to ask for her autograph tho :D

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Little Things 224 : New Machine

I've been using my MacbookPro-15inch since 2010, my final year in Uniten. The first 3 years was the honeymoon years - no problems, all perfect and nice. Like any digital devices after the fourth year of usage, it started having problems, I sent it to the Apple's service centre in KL to get it fixed. Again after a year forward, it started shutting down again for no reason on random times whenever it feels like it. I didn't do anything, I just kept patient and just use it. Even for the hundreds of force-restarts and saving files over and over again, just to complete an illustration. 

It's the 6th year, I freelanced half of the year using Af's iMac because I can no longer have a decent working time using my MBP without the auto-shutdowns. I know the problem was big, so I didn't want to spend my money on sending it to the service centre for a diagnostic until I really got extra money.

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Long story about my old MacbookPro : 

I got a 'big' international client for my freelance and I finally got the extra money. I sent my MBP to iMalaysian to get it checked. 3 days later, they asked me to come : they said the problem is the battery - to replace it with a new genuine battery will cost Rm 550 including the service + diagnostic fee. I mentioned my concern to them saying that it can't be just a battery problem, knowing that the laptop always shuts-down on random usage even while it is connected to the power supply or not. I know it must be bigger than just a battery. But they reassured me saying that they are sure it is just a battery problem. So I paid and waited for several more days for them to install a new battery.

I brought it back home.

On the first hour, I just surfed the net and again it happened. It automatically blacked out and I just had to force shut-down the laptop. I complained to them right-away - saying that it was still happening and I knew it was not a 'battery-problem'. They asked me to send it in back, I did. And I never heard back, for 2 weeks with 2 complains to their case system and finally to their Facebook, just to get their attention on the matter. They replied right-after saying on the 2nd diagnostic, they realized that the problem was a Logic Board issue (GPU) - to repair it, will cost another RM 1,800 with a 90 days warranty. 

I was outraged ! 

1. I told them it was not a 'battery-issue' like they reassured me, so to change the battery was irrelevant because I knew it wasn't the problem. But they insisted, they were wrong, and I already spent RM 550 but it didn't solve the problem.

2. They should update me in 3 days, but after 10 days, they didn't say anything. I asked twice on the case, and I even had to personally asked them through Facebook. Just to make them reply me. It took them 14 days to reply to the case.

So I told them that I don't want to spend RM 550 and RM 1,800 for a problem that they can't be sure they can solve. And I want my money back, and return the new unused battery =.= After a few more silent days, someone called me in, saying that after a long discussion with their supervisor, they decided to return my money back. They will inform me when my laptop is ready and they will send the money back to my account in 2 weeks. 

2 weeks passed, no one called me, no one replied to my case, I just had to inform them that I'm going to take it and just please be ready. I came in, and the same guy that took in my laptop asked for the old battery - that I didn't bring along. So I had to come back again later. 

Note :

This case happened since July 17. I finally took my MBP back yesterday, and he changed the battery to the old previous one that still works. He asked whether the management returned my money back - which they still haven't, even though this happened since in July. Malas nak layan all the drama, so I took my laptop and said thank you.

Update :
I finally received my full money back (3 weeks later after the date they promised) - that's because I filed another complain and asked them to contact the management to see the update of the case. This one took 5 weeks. 

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On the new device :

After learning about my laptop, I decided to buy a new machine. I guess it's time to upgrade, seeing that I'm now permanently working and I do take freelance once in a while. For the past 6 months we've been taking turn to use Af's iMac and I'm grateful for it because he's been so understanding T^T It was really hard, sometimes we both got freelance works to do, so he will use it until late at night and I will use it really early in the morning, both before we went out to work. 

I guess I already knew I wanted another MacBookPro, but it costs extra money than the one I bought 6 years back. The one I used was a MacBookPro 2014 - 15 inch, almost around RM7k. These days 15inch retina display costs around RM 8-10k. Which is super expensive ! I can't spend that much money seeing that I need to do kitchen renovation for my apartment and might need to use more money in near future. T^T

So after borrowing RM 5k from my mom - with a promise to pay RM 1k every month, I bought a Macbook Pro, retina display, 13-inch with basic specs. It costed RM 5,499.  

Now I'm using a new machine, much smaller and lighter than the one I've been using for the past 6 years. With a decent machine, complete with licensed softwares that I bought from Adobe CC and my own wacom tablet, I can now go anywhere in the world to work on my freelance stuffs - as I planned early in 2016. 

But I don't know what happened, along the way I accepted a permanent job offer at Cyberjaya and resigned from my permanent freelance works + I didn't accept any clientele works. So for the time-being; I'm resting a bit, updating my blog, watching a lot of series in iFlix, going out running, reading up books, gaining my energy again. The exhaustion paid off, this is my honeymoon phase once again. I should enjoy the ride and relax for awhile.